What’s It All About?

Soulja Boy in "Successful"

In the rap game everything is about bling and chicks. If you don’t have a hundred pounds of gold, silver and diamonds dangling over every part of your body, no one is going to listen to your music or pay you any mind. Or is that so? Why do most rappers now-a-days care only about money, girls and jewelry? Oh, and did I mention violence? Growing up I never really liked rap songs, at least I never really used to listen to them. Until I got into middle school and high school. I started to listen to rap more often, especially Tupac with his song “Ghetto Gospel” which had a powerful meaning and music video. This is when I really began to pay attention to rap lyrics and what the message behind the music was. In most cases, rappers such as Tupac and Biggie Smalls had a tough life growing up. From living in the hood with only their mother ’cause their father left at child birth, or from selling drugs on the street corner, each and almost every rapper had a story to tell. And each story almost always dealt with the law. So why is it that rappers flaunt and brag about what they have once they make it big? Is it because they have accomplished something only a lucky few have been able to accomplish or is because of something else? That something else, well, I am not too sure what that is. In Soulja Boy’s remix to Drake’s “Successful” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMkc_BHR5PA), Soulja flaunts not only two large stacks of cash but has on more jewelry than you can find in a Tiffany store. Now I can’t say that I know a thing about Soulja Boy’s childhood, but I do wonder why he flaunts himself in the ways that he does. I ask myself, “Does he want to get himself killed?”, “Is it to impress girls or that special someone?”, or is it him showing the world that he “made it” and he is now living a successful life?